The Spitzer Space Telescope

Ten Years Of Amazing Views

The Spitzer Space Telescope is an infrared space observatory launched on August 25, 2003. The telescope has studied comets and asteroids, it has helped to detect far-flung galaxies, and it even discovered soccer-ball-shaped carbon spheres called buckyballs.

It was the first to detect light coming from a planet outside our solar system, and discovered the largest of Saturn's many rings. Even though it ran out of the helium coolant needed to use its far-infrared detectors in 2009, two detectors have continued to provide striking images of the Universe.